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AUTHOR: 


RAND,  E.  K. 


TITLE: 


VIRGIL  AND  THE  DRAMA 


PLACE: 

S.L 

DA  TE : 

[1908] 


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Rand,  E.  K. 

Virgil  and  the  dramai:h[microforin].{:cPart  I  and  II 
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Reprinted  from  The  Classical  Journal,  Vol.  IV,  Nos.  1-2,  Nov.-Dec.  1908 


VIRGIL  AND  THE  DRAMA.     PART  I 


By  E.  K.  Rand 
Harvard  University 


The  modern  reader  wonders  often  at  the  almost  entire  lack  of  a 
drama  in  the  Augustan  Age,  and  regrets  especiaUy  the  loss  of  Ovid's 
Medea  and  the  Thyestes  of  Varius,  the  only  plays  of  the  period, 
apparently,  which  impressed  later  critics  as  significant.    Horace,  in 
a  passage  which  suggests  an  anti-Philistine  diatribe  of  Matthew 
Arnold,'  bewails  the  depraved  taste  of  the  popular  audience,  which 
resorted  to  the  theatre  to  glut  the  eye,  not  to  feed  the  understanding. 
It  may  be,  indeed,  that  the  plays  of  Ovid  and  Varius  gained  no  general 
hearing   at   aU,  but  were   closet  dramas,  presented  to  a  circle  of 
friends  at  the  recitatio.    Yet  admitting  that  the  stage,  as  such,  played 
no  part  in  the  devebpment  of  contemporary  poetry,  the  poets  them- 
selves, deeply  versed  in  the  diflFerent  types  of  Greek  literature,  could 
not  fail  to  draw  insphration  from  the  Greek  drama,  whatever  their 
opinion  of  the  early  dramatic  art  of  their  own  countrymen.    Horace's 
Art  of  Poetry  is  concerned  mainly  with  the  drama.     Several  of  his 
odes  are  essentiaUy  dramatic  in  plan,  and  his  Cleopatra,  though 
treated  in  the  compass  of  a  single  lyric,  deserves  a  place  with  the 
heroines  of  tragedy.    In  his  Satires  Horace  turns  to  a  form  of  poetry 
which  possibly  was  dramatic  in  origin,  as  the  ancient  critics  believed,' 
and  at  least  suggested  an  affinity  with  the  Greek  old  comedy  in  the 
boisterous  gibes  and  racy  wit  of  Horace's  master  Lucilius.    Horace's 
relation  to  him  is  much  like  that  of  Menander  to 

Eupolis  atque  Cratinm  Aristophanesque  poetae. 
He  mildens  and  refines;  he  makes  the  villain  not  less  but  more 
uncomfortable  by  iUuminating  his  foUy  instead  of  cudgeling  his 
guilt.  He  summons  against  his  victims,  not  the  Furies,  but  those 
comic  imps  who  in  our  own  generation  owe  chief  allegiance  to  George 
Meredith.  Surely  the  comic  spirit  comes  to  its  own  in  the  Satires 
of  Horace;  and  great  tragedy  we  find  in  Virgil. 


« Ep,  ii.  I.  i87ff. 


^t(^ 


i^ 


"Miiii 


32 


'^h 


7«" 


VIRGIL  AND  THE  DRAMA 


23 


24 


THE  CLASSICAL  JOURNAL 


There  axe  no  indications  in  VirgiPs  early  poems  of  dramatic 
genius  or  even  a  special  interest  in  the  drama.  From  the  first  his 
impulse  was  to  epic.  Like  Milton,  he  cherished  from  his  youth  a 
great  plan,  destined  to  ultimate  fulfilment  after  various  attempts  and 
changes  of  purpose.  The  epic  on  the  Alban  kings  of  Rome,  on  which 
the  youthful  Maro  toiled 

Ere  warning  Phoebus  touched  his  trembling  ears, 

the  inappropriate  Inferno  of  the  Cw/ea:— an  Inferno  at  least  as  painful 
to  the  modem  reader  as  to  the  mythical  sinner  of  old — ^those  failures 
discouraged  Virgil  for  the  time,  but  they  led  to  the  triumphs  of  his 
Eclogues.    In  VirgiPs  Eclogues  we  find  a  literary  creation:   pastoral 
they  are  in  essence,  molles  atquefaceti,  and  favored  of  the  Muses  who 
love  the  coimtryside,  as  Horace  said  of  them,  but  breathing,  too,  a 
new  spirit,  the  unmistakable  touch  of  epic  feeling,  forever  present  in 
the  undercurrent  of  VirgiPs  thought.    A  happy  combination  this, 
a  daring  feat  he  called  it  later,  leading  to  countless  imitations  after- 
ward, but  not  achieved  again  in  the  history  of  pastoral  poetry  ^ntil 
Milton.    But  hardly  a  touch  of  the  dramatic  is  noticeable  in  VirgiPs 
eclogues.    Eclogues   certainly   contain   dramatic   elements   in   the 
dialogue  and  in  the  amoebaean  debate,  and  in  the  time  of  the  Renais- 
sance they  developed  into  actual  drama.    The  rustics  of  Theocritus 
are  often  intensely  individual  and  various  of  his  pastorals  are  essentially 
mimes.    In  Virgil,  however,  there  is  little  attempt  at  dramatization, 
and  only  one  eclogue,  the  eighth,  is  distinctly  dramatic  in  structure. 
In  the  Georgics,  too,  though  epic  feeling  surges  through  the  whole 
poem  and  comes  to  absolute  expression  in  the  closing  book,  no 
dramatic  development  is  apparent.    But  at  some  time  before  he 
began  the  Aeneid,  Virgil  had  meditated  profoundly  on  the  problem 
of  Greek  tragedy. 

I 

Few  readers  can  have  failed  to  remark  that  the  fourth  Aeneid  is 
essentially  a  tragedy,  and  in  the  Renaissance  playwrights  of  various 
nationalities  sought  with  indifferent  success  to  reset  the  story  into 
actual  dramatic  form.  Such  tragedies  bear  Dido's  name  as  title 
and  present  her  fate  as  the  chief,  if  not  the  sole,  dramatic  motive. 
To  most  of  these  writers  Aeneas  is  a  shadowy  figure,  and,  by  impli- 


cation, a  viUain,  the  more  detestable  for  his  pietas.  JodeUe  has  more 
than  the  ordinary  sympathy  for  Aeneas,  yet  the  chorus  condemns  the 
hero  in  the  end.  To  Marlowe,  he  is  almost  a  comic  villain.  Such 
criticism  was,  of  course,  nothing  new,  and  it  did  not  cease  with  the 
Renaissance.    Imogen's  dreadful  indictment  that 

True,  honest  men,  being  heard,  like  false  Aeneas, 
Were  in  his  time  thought  false, 

echoes  the  sentiment  more  mildly  expressed  in  a  mediaeval  lament 
of  the  repentant  Aeneas 

Non  semper  utile 
est  diis  credere.  ... 
nam  instigaverunt 
me  te  relinquere 

and  is  typical,  too,  of  much  that  has  been  written  on  the  fourth 
Aeneid  in  recent  years.  Mr.  T.  R.  Glover  remarks,  in  his  Studies 
in  Virgil, 

In  Didoes  anguish  it  is  written  that  the  gods  think  more  of  seven  hills  beside 
a  nver  than  of  human  woe  or  of  right  and  wrong.  Here  our  tragedy  fails  and  is 
untrue.     On  the  side  of  Dido  it  is  true,  vividly  and  transparently  true.^ 

Certainly  the  tragedy  fails  if  the  hero  is  a  scoundrel  in  disguise, 
if  Aeneas  is  but  another  Theseus.  The  lament  of  an  Ariadne,  as  in' 
Catullus'  beautiful  poem,  has  room  for  intense  pathos,  but  not  for 
tragedy.  The  solution  here  is  simple;  the  villain  is  punished,  and 
the  heroine  is  consoled.  But  punishment  and  consolation  are  un- 
thinkable remedies  for  the  denouement  of  the  fourth  Aeneid.  The 
reason  is  that  the  deep  emotions  and  high  ideals  of  Aeneas  are,  no 
less  than  Dido's  passion  and  suffering,  a  part  of  Virgil's  tragedy. 

One  cannot  understand  the  plot  of  the  fourth  Aeneid  apart  from 
the  books  preceding.  They  are  important  not  only  for  the  main 
idea  of  the  poem,  but  for  the  drama  of  the  fourth  book.  In  the 
first,  the  chief  actors  in  this  drama  are  presented.  Dido,  queenly  and 
competent,  yet  ever  the  woman,  immediately  fascinates.  Aeneas 
needs  deeper  study,  but  his  character,  once  Virgil's  meaning  is 
grasped,  is  quite  as  clearly  conceived.  It  is  given  in  his  address  to 
his  men  at  a  moment  of  utter  despair  when,  after  the  shipwreck, 
part  of  them  have  landed  on  a  foreign  shore. 

'  P.  190.     An  essentially  similar  treatment  is  given  by  N.  W.  DeWitt  "The  Dido 
Episode  in  the  Aeneid  of  Viigil,"  Class.  Jour.  1907,  pp.  27  flf. 


« 


'I 


VIRGIL  AND  THE  DRAMA 


25 


36 


THE  CLASSICAL  JOURNAL 


"Comrades — aye  comrades,  for  no  strangers  are  we  ere  this  to  woes — O  ye 
who  have  suffered  harder  things,  for  these,  too,  heaven  will  ordain  an  end.  Men, 
you  have  drawn  near  to  Scylla's  fury  and  her  deeply  echoing  cliffs;  you,  too, 
have  risked  the  Cyclops'  stones.  Call  back  your  hearts  and  banish  mournful 
fear.  Haply,  some  day,  this  too  will  be  pleasure  to  remember.  Through  diverse 
haps,  through  many  a  peril  by  the  way,  we  push  our  course  to  Latium,  where  the 
fates  show  a  resting-place  secure;  there,  they  decree,  the  realms  of  Troy  shall 
rise  again.    Bear  up,  and  keep  yourselves  for  better  days." 

So  spake  his  voice;  sick  with  mighty  cares,  he  wore  hope  on  his  face,  and 
crushed  the  deep  woe  in  his  heart.' 

These  are  the  words  of  a  brave  man  of  action  who  has  encoun- 
tered perils  and  knows  sorrow,  but  who  does  not  wear  his  feelings  on 
his  sleeve;  his  vision  is  set  on  the  distant  goal,  which  somehow  he 
shall  reach.  Deep  woe  at  heart,  but  mastery  of  emotion,  supreme 
reserve  and  resolution — ^these  are  the  fundamental  traits  of  Aeneas' 
character.  Virgil  has  taken  a  suggestion  from  the  speech  of  Teucer 
in  the  splendid  ode  of  Horace — if  indeed  that  is  the  earlier  poem — 
and  both  Dante  and,  following  in  his  steps,  Tennyson  have  in  the 
words  which  their  hero  Ulysses  addresses  to  his  disconsolate  men, 
caught  again  the  spirit  of  VurgiFs  lines,  and  shown  their  understand- 
ing of  his  Aeneas.  Virgil  knew  of  a  historical  counterpart  in  the 
character  of  Julius  Caesar,  and  he  portrays  his  hero  with  the  same 
masterly  reserve  with  which  the  character  of  Julius  Caesar  is  pre- 
sented in  Shakespeare. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  book,  the  plot  of  the  drama  is  stated. 
When  Aeneas  and  his  attendant  stand  forth  refulgent  from  the  cloud, 

obstupuit  primo  aspectu  Sidonia  Dido. 

The  artifice  of  Venus  seems  almost  unnecessary;  after  it  and  before, 
the  dramatic  problem  is  revealed  as  Dido's  passion  and  its  relation 
to  the  hero's  ideals.  Following  an  accepted  device  of  the  dramatist, 
Virgil  does  not  proceed  at  once  to  the  solution  of  the  problem,  but 
now  that  the  reader's  interest  is  aroused,  interposes  other  matter  to 
lengthen  the  suspense.  And  yet  Virgil's  second  book,  though  defer- 
ring the  dramatic  problem,  is  relevant  to  it.  The  purpose  of  the 
new  narrative  is  to  develop  the  character  of  the  hero,  as  outlined 
in  the  first  book.  After  the  horror  of  the  last  night  of  Troy,  where 
Aeneas,  despite  the  divine  command  of  Hector,  fought  desperately  on 

X  Aen.  i.  198  ff. 


tiU  aU  was  lost,  a^ter  the  weary  voyages  and  purposeless  settlements 
dutifully  undertaken  in  obedience  to  an  undefined  and  forever 
retreating  ideal,  we  read  with  new  understanding  the  words  of  Aeneas- 
speech,  and  see  again  in  the  hero  a  man  of  brave  deeds  who  encounters 
togic  calamity  and-what  is  sometimes  harder  to  bear-sickening 
deferment  ^d  the  jests  of  brute  chance.  For  aU  this,  he  can  crush  the 
deep  woe  of  his  heart,  and  hopefuUy  push  on  to  his  goal 

But  the  moment  of  temptation  is  at  hand,  for  Aeneas  and  Dido 
both.  A  very  natural  temptation  it  is  for  Aeneas,  coming  at  the 
moment  of  extreme  despair  and  after  so  many  attempts  to  raise  the 
walls  of  a  new  Troy.    Might  not  the  rising  Carthage  fulfil  at  once  the 

7.^f  f",     I  /'""  ^    ^^  ^""^  ^'^°  '^'  *^"Pt-tion  is  both  natural 
and  fa  ed      Before  Aeneas  half  feels  its  presence,  she  has  yielded  to 
her  sisters  entreaties,  to  the  god's  influence,  and  to  her  own  heart, 
bm,  the  poet  believes,  is  complete  at  the  moment  of  decision:  whUe 
Aeneas,  hke  the  shepherd  who  hits  a  doe  with  a  random  shaft,  is 
still     unaware."'  she  by  mentaUy  consenting  has  "given  hope  to 
her  wavering  heart,  and  loosed  her  chastity.'"    This  is  the  same 
Pudor  to  which  she  has  sworn  sacred  aUegiance  in  the  speech  given 
not  many  lines  before.    To  Dido,  too.  belongs  the  guilt  of  the  act, 
when  on  the  day  of  the  hunt  the  lovers  meet,  and  Jmio  and  the  ele- 
ments sanction  the  union  as  best  they  may. 

love^%r'  T"t  °3r  ^t'  ^P^"*=*  °'  '■'P°^=  "°  '»°^«  <1°^  ^«  br«^  a  secret 
love.    She  caUs  It  wedlock,  and  cloaks  with  this  name  her  sin.i 

Fame  that  horrid  monster  of  the  feathered  eyes,  reports  that  Aeneas 
and  Dido  are  wasting  the  long  winter  in  riot,  "heedless  of  their 
realms  and  bound  by  low  desire."^    Thus  speaks  gossip,  basely 
coloring  the  truth,  but  true  to  one  part  of  it.  for  the  poet  himsehf 
speaks  a  few  hnes  later,  of  "lovers  forgetful  of  their  higher  glory  "5 
Up  to  this  point  Virgil  has  betrayed  by  no  word  the  feelings  of  Aeneas 
but  now  we  see  that  he.  too,  has  yielded  to  passion  and  a  change  of 
purpose     He  proceeds  with  his  mission:   he  "founds  towers  and 
makes  houses  new,"«  but  wears  the  whUe  a  cloak  of  Tyrian  purple 
the  work  of  Dido's  hands.  «"i  purpie, 


«  NesciuSy  vs.  72. 
•  Vs.  55. 


s  Vss.  170  ff. 
*  Vs.  194. 


sVs.  221. 
^Vss.  260  flf. 


■■f 


'1'  ' 


VIRGIL  AND  THE  DRAMA 


27 


When  the  stern  message  comes  from  Jove,  "  Aeneas  at  the  sight 

was  dumb,  his  senses  gone He  longed  to  flee  away  and  leave 

that  lovely  land,  overwhelmed  at  such  a  warning,  such  mandate 
from  the  gods.'*  His  first  thought  was,  how  he  should  now  approach 
the  queen,  what  plea  would  win  forgiveness  and  approval'  He 
orders  his  men  to  make  ready  in  secret  for  sailing  at  a  moment's 

notice. 

He,  meanwhile,  since  his  good  Dido  knew  it  not,  nor  dreamed  such  love 
would  be  dissevered,  would  ponder  the  best  chance  of  approach,  what  the  time 
for  gentle  speaking,  what  mode  of  action  most  auspicious. 

Two  possible  inferences  may  be  drawn  from  this  passage.  =»  Per- 
haps this  is  a  callous  hero,  or  else  a  lay  figure,  a  mere  emblem  of 
Roman  destiny.  But  perhaps  we  may  read  in  these  lines  what  we 
have  learned  before  of  Aeneas.  He  is  a  man  of  deepest  feeling,  his 
passion  has  been  intense,  but  in  the  face  of  such  a  revelation  he 
masters  himself  in  an  instant.  He  sees  his  infidelity  and  in  an  instant 
resolves.  Best  to  have  done  once  for  all  with  what  was  sin  for  them 
both.  It  cannot  be  a  separation  like  that  of  Antony  from  Cleo- 
patra, which 

So  abides  and  flies, 

That  thou,  residing  here,  go'st  yet  with  me, 
And  I,  hence  fleeting,  here  remain  with  thee. 

Nor  can  Dido  stand,  as  Lorenzo  thought  of  her, 

With  a  willow  in  her  hand 
Upon  the  wild  sea  banks,  and  waft  her  love 
To  come  again  to  Carthage. 

The  parting  must  be  brief  and  forever. 

Certam  recent  critics  have  claimed  that  we  have  no  right  to  find 
pathos  in  the  story  of  Dido:  this,  it  is  said,  is  an  intrusion  of  modem 
romanticism  which  ancient  feeling  would  not  have  tolerated. 

Nor, ....  though  Virgil  in  his  powerful  picture  of  Dido's  grief  and  despair 
arouses '  our  sympathy  for  the  forsaken  heroine,  need  we  suppose  that  such 
was  his  intention  or  such  the  effect  upon  Roman  readers.  For  them  and  him 
Dido  symbolized  Carthage,  as  Aeneas  symbolized  Rome:  and  her  fate,  to  Roman 
eyes,  was  only  right,  an  echo  of  the  old  cry  ddenda  est  Carthago.^ 

I  This  is  the  meaning  of  anibire,  vs.  283.     The  word  is  used  of  the  poUtician,  who 
'soUcits; "    it  is  also  used,  as  here,  of  the  worshiper  who  implores.     Some  editors  turn 
Virgil's  tragedy  into  farce  by  translating  literally,  "get  around." 

a  Vss.  279-95.  3  Papillon  and  Haigh,  introduction  to  Book  iv. 


J 


28 


THE  CLASSICAL  JOURNAL 


But  ancient  readers  found  pathos  enough  in  similar  narratives 
of  Catullus  and  Ovid,  and  when  Ovid  assures  us  that  the  fourth 
Aeneid  was  the  most  popular  part  of  the  poem,  we  are  clear  that, 
whatever  the  truth  of  this  statement,  the  readers  whom  he  has  in 
mind  did  not  go  to  the  story  of  Dido  for  political  allegory.     Nor  did 
the  youthful  Augustine  shed  tears  for  finding  such,  nor  is  this  why 
Macrobius  includes  a  lengthy  treatment  of  this  book  under  the 
rubric  of  pathos.    If  the  speech  of  Dido'  in  which  omnia  tuta  timens 
she  reproaches  Aeneas  for  his  intended  cruelty,  is  not  pathos,  and 
intended  pathos,  then  we  had  better  look  farther  for  a  definition 
of  this  term.     She  begins  by  reproaching  him  for  his  base  resolve 
to  steal  away  from  her,  heedless  of  their  love,  his  pledges,  and  the 
cruel  death  in  store  for  her:   by  this  she  means  that  natural  death 
which  the  slighted  lover  dies— but  the  reader  knows  the  terrible 
meaning  of  the  tragic  irony.     But  if  Aeneas  must  go,  why  should  he 
brave  a  wintry  sea  ?    Such  action  she  calls  cruel— cruel  to  her  and  to 
himself.    She  implores  him  by  her  tears  and  his  pledges,  by  their 
"wedlock  just  begun,"  to  pity  her  and  save  her  from  the  surrounding 
foes,  who  will  pour  in  at  his  departure.    For  his  sake  she  had  con- 
sented to  shame.     "To  whom  dost  thou  leave  me  to  die,  my  guest  ? 
Since  this  name  alone  is  all  that  is  left  from  that  of  husband."     With 
a  supreme  appeal  to  the  most  sacred  of  human  feelings,  she  laments 
that  there  will  be  no  child  to  console  her,  no  little  Aeneas  to  bear 
his  features  and  his  name.     "  Then  should  I  not  seem  utterly  captive 
and  forlorn."     The  Dido  of  Ovid's  seventh  Heroid  invokes  a  curse 
on  her  betrayer,  in  that  he  may  have  left  her  with  child,  doubling 
his  legacy  of  cruehy  and  shame.     This  bit  of  Ovid's  subtle  charac- 
terization presents  a  prouder  Dido,  a  scornful  heroine:   Virgil  por- 
trays for  the  moment  the  weak  and  loving  woman.*     "Thus  she 
spoke.     He,  at  Jove's  behest,  bent  firm  his  glance  and  struggling 
crushed  the  anguish  in  his  heart."^ 

Obnixus  curatn  sub  corde  premebat: 

These  words  show  that  we  have  inferred  aright  the  meaning  of 

"  Vss.  305  flf. 

«  This  interpretation  is  the  reverse  of  that  given  by  Zielinski  PhUologus  LXIV 
(1905)  17. 

3  Vss.  331  f. 


h 


4 


I 


1! 


VIRGIL  AND  THE  DRAMA 


39 


Aeneas'  resolve  when  the  warning  came.  The  very  phrasing  recalls 
those  words  in  which  his  character  was  first  presented— /^ewf/  altum 
corde  dolorem:^  we  see  again  the  man  who  deeply  feels  but  is  strong 
to  control.  Conington  renders  curam  by  "great  love,"  but  Virgil 
has  not  yet  spoken  so  plainly;  with  supreme  skill  he  heightens  his 
final  impression  by  gradual  explicitness  and  growing  mtensity. 

Aeneas  replies,  as  he  says,  briefly.  Conington  well  observes  that 
his  speech  is  actually  longer  than  that  of  Dido:  "but  the  words  come 
slowly  and  with  efiFort,  and  bear  no  comparison  to  what  the  lover 
would  have  said  had  he  given  away  to  his  emotions."  He  begins  by 
acknowledging  the  justice  of  her  appeal  to  his  protection: 

I  never  will  deny,  O  queen,  that  thou  hast  deserved  of  me  a  thousand-fold 
more  than  thy  words  can  ever  utter,  nor  shall  I  be  loth  to  bethink  me  of  Elissa, 
so  long  as  my  memory  lasts  and  breath  inspires  this  frame. 

Surely  these  are  heartless  words,  if  they  express  all  that  Aeneas 
feels— an  almost  condescending  esteem  instead  of  the  passion  on 
which  the  two  had  fed— but  they  are  tragic  words  for  him  as  well  as 
for  her,  if  they  crush  deep  anguish  of  spirit.    He  answers  m  a  word 
her  charge  of  base  desertion;  he  had  not  meant  to  steal  away,  but, 
as  the  reader  has  seen,  prepared  for  instant  departure  after  his  last 
words  with  her.     "Nor  did  I  hold  the  bridegroom's  torch  before  me, 
or  enter  into  such  a  covenant."    These  are  the  most  cruel  words  of 
all,  because  the  plain  truth.    But  cruelty  is  the  only  kindness  if  the 
separation  must  be  at  once  and  irrevocable— and  it  is  demanded  by 
the  fates.    Aeneas  has  obeyed  the  will  of  heaven  before  against  his 
own  desire,  else  he  never  would  have  started  on  his  weary  quest; 
he  would  have  built  again  the  walls  of  his  native  Troy.    But  Italy, 
Italy— the  words  come  ringmg  in  like  a  motif  in  Wagner— is  the 
predestined  goal.    "This  is  my  love,  and  this  my  native  land." 
And  has  she  not  a  mission,  too,  a  city  to  build  ?    They  both  had  been 
faithless  to  their  ideals;  may  he  not  cherish  an  ideal  as  well  as  she  ? 
In  visions  of  the  night  his  father  Anchises  comes  to  reproach  him; 
the  sight  of  his  boy  Ascanius,  whom  he  is  robbing  of  his  destiny, 
is  a  constant  reproach.    Now  appears  the  messenger  of  the  gods  with 
a  final  command.    So  "cease  to  torture  thee  and  me  with  thy  com- 
plaints"—tears  and  sympathy  would  be  the  cruel  course  now.    "To 


>  V  vs.  209. 


30 


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Italy,  not  of  my  wiU,  I  foUow  on."    These  last  words  resume  in 

brief  compass  the  elements  of  the  tragedy  that  confronts  Aeneas: 

Italiam,  his  mission,  non  sponte,  his  love,  sequor  his  resolution. 

Those  who  object  to  what  they  deem  the  impassiveness  of  Virgil's 

hero  should  note  that  Dido  in  her  retort  makes  precisely  the  same 

charge.'     Rock-bom  she  calls  him,  the  nursling  of  tigers. 

"  Had  he  a  sigh  for  my  weeping  ?    Turned  he  his  eyes  to  me  ?    Did  he 
yield  and  shed  tears  ?    Did  he  pity  her  that  loved  him  ?  " 

Virgil,  we  see,  was  not  blind  to  the  opportunity.  He  might  have 
evoked  compassion  from  Aeneas  at  this  moment— if  he  had  chosen. 
And  when  Dido,  kindling  to  the  sense  of  her  lover's  ingratitude,  scoffs, 
with  just  a  touch  of  blasphemy,  at  his  divine  mission,  proudly  bids 
him  go,  and  exults  at  the  doom  which  she,  as  minister  of  the  furies, 
will  visit  on  him— when  faint  from  such  excess  of  feeling  she  is  borne 
off  by  her  attendants,  Aeneas  in  anxiety  for  her,'  can  hold  back 
passion  no  longer. 

But  loyal  Aeneas,  though  he  would  fain  soften  her  grief  with  words  of  conso- 
lation and  assuage  her  cares,  deeply  grieving,  his  whole  heart  upheaved  with  his 
great  love,  fulfils  for  all  that  the  mandates  of  the  gods  and  again  repaire  to  his 
Ueet. 

ilwwr— passion:   that  is  the  word  that  Virgil  has  not  spoken  till  now. 

After  Dido's  final  appeal— the  messages  sent  by  Anna— Virgil 
gathers  up  in  one  simile  the  impressions  made  thus  f ar  m  an  ascend- 
ing scale.  We  have  learned  of  the  hero's  amazement  and  his  fixed 
resolve  at  the  moment  of  the  Tevelsition—obmutuit;  we  have  seen  that 
his  outer  calmness  disguised  deep  anguish— cwrow  sub  corde  pre- 
mebat;  he  has  made  virtual  confession  to  Dido  that  love  is  the  fee 
exacted  by  obedience— /toWaw  non  sponte  sequor;  finally  the  anguish 
that  masters  him  is  openly  called  love— magnoque  animum  labef actus 
anwre.  Allusive  description  and  the  gradual  approach— these  are 
methods  characteristic  of  a  peculiarly  Vkgilian  quality,  to  which 
Mr.  R.  S.  Conway  has  done  justice  in  a  recent  paper,^  reticence  and 

» Vss.  365  s, 

»  Vss.  390  f.:  mulia  metu  cunctantem  et  muUa  paranUm  \  dicere.  Some  editors  again 
stage  this  scene  for  comedy,  seeing  in  metu  "the  dread  of  arousing  her  wrath  still  fur- 
ther." 

3  "An  Unnoticed  Aspect  of  Virgil's  PersonaUty,"  Proceedings  of  the  English 
Classical  Association,  1907. 


VIRGIL  AND  THE  DRAMA 


31 


32 


THE  CLASSICAL  JOURNAL 


artistic  reserve.  It  is  perhaps  the  most  fascinating  and  distinctive 
trait  of  Virgil's  personality,  one  which  his  reader  greets  on  page 
after  page;  it  reveals  in  the  written  word  the  same  impulse  that 
prompted  the  shy  poet  to  take  refuge  in  the  nearest  doorway,  when 
passers-by  pointed  him  out  in  the  streets  of  Rome. 
After  the  last  of  Dido's  messages,  we  are  told — 

He,  though,  is  touched  by  no  laments,  nor  is  he  pliant  to  hear  her  supplica- 
tion. The  fates  oppose:  God  shut  the  hero's  steadfast  ears.  And  even  as  an 
oak,  mighty  with  years  of  strength,  now  here,  now  there  is  tossed  by  the  blasts 
of  Alpine  Boreas  who  struggles  to  uproot  it— loud  it  creaks,  and  as  its  trunk  is 
shaken,  deep-piled  leaves  clutter  the  earth:  the  tree  clings  to  the  rocks,  and  as 
far  as  it  stretches  its  crown  into  the  higher  air,  so  deep  its  roots  toward  Tartarus 
are  stretching— even  so  the  hero  on  this  side  and  on  that,  bears  the  blows  of 
entreaty  and  knows  anguish  in  his  great  heart.  His  will  abides  unshaken;  and 
tears  are  showered  in  vain. 

I  believe  with  St.  Augustine  and  Servius  against  many  editors  from 
Heyne  down,  that  these  are  the  tears  of  Aeneas.  They  need  not  be 
for  the  point  of  VirgiPs  characterization,  as  this  appears  in  the  line 
precedmg— wagno  persentii  pectore  curas.  But  these  falling  tears  are 
to  match  the  falling  leaves— outer  symbol  of  the  inner  stress;  the 
simile  is  exact  in  all  its  parts.  A  modem  commentator  queries  why 
tears  of  Aeneas  should  be  inanes;  ''iusta  causa  non  appareV  he 
remarks.'  Incomprehensible  certainly,  granted  a  hero  who  has  no 
cause  for  regret.    But  there  is  a  battle  on  between  Aeneas'  emotions 

and  his  will. 

One  more  passage  in  Book  iv  gives  indications  of  the  hero's 
feelings— a  passage  susceptible  of  gross  mismterpretation.  After 
those  liquid  Imes  on  the  calm  of  night,»  brought  in  painful  contrast 
with  the  anguish  of  the  queen,  it  is  said  of  Aeneas^  that  "he,  in  his 
high  ship,  determined,  now,  on  going,  was  plucking  the  flower  of 
sleep,  all  being  now  in  readiness."  Carpebat  somnuTn^-en]oymg 
sleep  to  the  full.  Is  this  a  sign  of  heartlessness  ?  Rather,  after 
the  anguish  of  his  own  struggle  and  the  pain  of  his  sympathy  with 
Dido's  grief,  he  gains  that  peace  which  succeeds  a  bitter  fight,  and 

»  Forbiger  on  vs.  449. 
aVss.  522!. 
3Vss.5S4f. 


yields  to  his  exhaustion  when  all  has  been  done  that  he  can  do— iam 
certus  eundiy  rebus  tarn  rite  paratis,^ 

It  would  be  easy  to  cite  throughout  the  narrative  of  the  fourth 
book,  and  especially  toward  the  end,  the  various  bits  of  incident  or 
description  by  which  Virgil  suggests  that  the  external  setting,  the 
scenic  adornment  of  the  story  is  that  of  the  tragic  stage. »    These 
details  would  mean  little,  however,  if  the  inner  plot  were  not  of  the 
essence  of  tragedy,  as  it  is.    It  brings  us  face  to  face  with  the  ancient 
motive  of  the  Greek  drama,  the  conflict  between  human  will  and  an 
overruling  fate;  tragedy  lies  in  the  bitter  conclusion  that  the  actors, 
though  pursuing  right  paths,  or  at  least  natural  paths,  run  into 
disaster  despite  themselves.    They  cannot  be  viUains,  else  tragedy 
would  not  purge  the  emotions  with  the  thrill  of  pity  and  fear,  but 
merely  awaken  indignation  and  suggest  an  obvious  remedy— the 
flaying  of  the  villain.     Not  that  the  actors  need  be  spotless.     We 
demand  not  a  triumphant,  logical  insight  into  every  move  in  the 
ethics  of  the  narrative,  but  pity  and  fear  at  the  calamities  of  creatures 
like  ourselves,  involved  in  the  play  of  forces  passing  their  control. 
Both  Aeneas  and  Dido  are  faithless  to  an  absolute  moral  standard 
and  their  own  ideals,  but  their  infidelity  is  so  natural,  almost  irre- 
sistible, that  we  are  ready  to  condone. 

Si  fuit  errandum,  causas  habet  error.  Thus  Dido  pleads  for 
herself  in  Ovid's  HeroU,  and  Vurgil,  too,  acquits  her  in  his  closing 
words 

necfato  merita  nee  morte  perihat, 

sed  miser  a  ante  diem  subitoqtie  accensa  furore. 

Dante  acquits  her  by  placing  her  at  the  entrance  of  the  Inferno, 
not  in  the  seventh  circle  of  the  lower  hell.  Aeneas'  yielding  to  so 
reasonable  a  temptation  at  the  moment  of  utter  dejection  is  pardon- 
able too;  many  a  reader  will  allow  that,  who  cannot  pardon  his 
return  to  duty,  who  does  not  see  that  his  struggle  with  his  heart- 

'  Lucan  has  a  similar  situation  at  the  beginning  of  his  third  book.  Pompey, 
sailing  away  from  his  foes  at  Brundisium,  "Solus  ab  Hesperia  nonfltxit  lumina  terra 
until  the  last  speck  of  land  has  passed  from  view—dum  duhios  cernit  vanescere  monies. 
Not  till  then  soporifero  cesserunt  languida  somno  \  membra  ducts.  So  too  the  sleep  of 
Ariadne  and  of  Andromeda  as  described  by  Propertius  i.  3.  i  flf.  In  fact  we  are  dealing 
here  with  a  traditional  motive  in  both  literature  and  art. 

a  A  point  well  illustrated  by  N.  W.  DeWitt  in  Classical  Journal,  II,  283  flf. 


1 


!  I 


I  ) 


VIRGIL  AND  THE  DRAMA 


33 


shaking  emotions  and  his  mastery  of  them  are  as  tragic  for  him  as 
for  Dido.  His  passion  and  hers,  natural  and  condoned,  clash  with 
the  purpose  of  a  righteous  and  irresistible  fate.  This  makes  the 
tragedy.  No  other  ending  could  be  conceived  save  that  which 
Virgil  gives;  Aeneas  must  sail  away.  George  Meredith,  with  a 
strikingly  similar  plot  in  his  Lord  Ormont,  ends  in  revolt  and — a 
curious  consequence — ^banality:  his  Aeneas  stays  in  Carthage  and 
"throws  his  sceptre  at  the  injurious  gods."  But  Virgil  is  writing 
tragedy. 

{To  be  continued] 


VIRGIL  AND  THE  DRAMA.    PART  H 


By  E.  K.  Rand 
Harvard  University 


We  must  not  forget  that  the  gods  take  part  in  the  drama  of  the 
Aeneid.  A  measure  of  Dido's  guilt  reverts  to  Venus— not  all,  for 
Dido,  it  would  seem,  had  been  ready  of  her  own  accord.  But 
VirgiPs  gods  are  not  merely  human  passions  writ  large,  addmg 
nothing  to  the  plot  but  epic  mechanism  and  the  contrast  of  shifted 
scenes.  They  are  larger  human  actors,  more  powerful,  but  sub- 
missive, like  men,  to  the  fates.  Standing  in  rank  midway  between, 
they  descend  to  the  human  plane,  help  or  retard,  and  withdraw. 
Their  action  has  interest  in  itself  and  their  characters  have  person- 
ality. Thus  Venus  in  the  first  book  seems  charmingly  unintelligent 
in  encouraging  her  son  to  run  so  great  a  peril:  she  thinks,  apparently, 
of  Dido  merely  as  an  enemy  who  may  flay  the  shipwrecked  Trojans 
if  she  is  not  enamored  of  Aeneas  in  time.  The  goddess  does  not 
consider  that  the  hero's  infatuation  delays  the  fates  and  his  ultimate 
triumph.  Juno  has  more  sober  sense :  she  will  entangle  him  in  the 
very  trap  that  Venus  has  set.  Pretending  indignation  at  such  arti- 
fice, she  proposes  to  her  fair  rival  that  the  passion  which  Venus  has 
aroused  be  further  strengthened  by  wedlock.* 

Now  thou  hast  what  thou  soughtest  with  all  thy  heart.  Dido  is  a-fire  with 
love  and  has  sucked  passion  to  the  marrow  of  her  bones.  Let  us,  therefore,  you 
and  I,  rule  with  equal  auspices  this  race  conjoined.  Let  her  be  slave  to  a  Phry- 
gian lord,  and  entrust  her  Tyrians  as  dowry  to  thine  hand. 

Venus,  perceiving  the  trick,  answers  with  a  smile: 
Who  so  mad  as  to  spurn  an  o£fer  like  this,  or  prefer  instead  to  take  up  arms 
against  thyself— if  only  good  fortune  may  attend  the  plan  that  thou  proposest? 
But  I  drift  doubtful  of  the  fates— whether  Jove  will  that  there  should  be  one  city 
for  the  Tyrians  and  the  voyagers  from  Troy,  or  approve  the  union  of  their  tribes 
and  bonds  of  federation.  Thou  art  his  spouse,  thou  hast  the  right  to  test  his 
temper  with  entreaty.    Lead  on:  and  I  will  follow. 

Juno,  oblivious  to  the  delicious  irony  and  coquetry  of  Venus'  assent, 
« iv.  93  s. 

SI 


I'll 

m 


sa 


THE  CLASSICAL  JOURNAL 


undertakes  to  arrange  things  by  herself.  She  sets  the  stage  for  the 
fatal  hunt  and  the  storm,  for  the  meeting  in  the  cave,  for  the  liturgy 
which  she  will  improvise  to  sanction  the  act.  She  presents  the  plan 
explicitly  to  Venus.  And  Venus  "opposed  not  her  request,  but 
nodded,  and  smiled  at  the  invention  of  such  a  snare."  Venus  smiles 
first  at  the  cleverness  of  Juno's  plans— for  it  is  a  downright  good 
trick— but  also  because  she  perceives  that  it  will  all  come  back  on 
Jimo  in  the  end.  In  short  Venus  is  far  more  sagacious  than  the 
reader  suspected  at  the  start. 

This  incident  shows  well  enough  the  purpose  of  the  divine  machinery 
in  Virgil's  drama.  Gods  complicate  the  plot,  appearing  as  super- 
human actors.  They  help  or  hinder  mortals  without  being  mere 
personifications  of  their  qualities;  they  hasten  or  retard  the  fates, 
without  being  mere  symbols  of  ukimate  purpose.  Their  coming 
shifts  the  scene  to  the  radiancy  of  Olympus  and  gives  the  relief  of 
contrast.  In  the  scene  before  us,  and  elsewhere  in  the  Aeneid,  as 
in  Homer,  they  afford  comic  relief  for  the  setting  of  tragedy.  Comedy 
for  the  gods;  tragedy  is  reserved  for  mortal  men — miseri  mortales — 
whom  VirgiPs  gods  can  sometimes  pity  too. 

Ill 

The  fifth  Aeneid,  that  counterpoise  of  graceful  comedy  to  the 
tragedy  of  the  fourth,  gives  us  further  insight  into  the  character  of 
the  hero.  After  this  book,  in  which  he  appears  at  the  games  as  a 
dutiful  son  and  princely  entertainer,  and  after  the  following  book, 
we  are  ready  for  the  summary  of  his  qualities  that  Dante  gives  in 
his  Convivio^—Lealta,  Cprtesia,  Amore,  Fortezza,  Temperanza.  The 
meeting  of  Aeneas  with  Dido  in  the  Mournful  Fields  of  the  under- 
world shows  us  directly  again  what  the  fourth  book  has  developed  in  a 
careful  climax  of  explicitness— that  deep  feeling  underlay  the  severity 
which  it  was  kindness  to  assume. 

When  the  Trojan  hero  saw  her  dimly  through  the  shadows,  even  as  one  who  at 
the  month's  beginning  sees  or  thinks  he  sees  the  rising  moon,  he  poured  forth 
tears'  and  with  sweet  love  addressed  her: 

"Hapless  Dido,  had  then  true  message  come  to  me  that  thou  wert  dead,  and 
with  the  sword  hadst  taken  desperate  measures?    Was  it,  alas,  to  the  grave  I 

t  IV.  26. 

*  These  tears,  at  least,  seem  to  be  those  of  Aeneas. 


VIRGIL  AND  THE  DRAMA 


53 


brought  thee  ?  By  the  stars  I  swear,  by  gods  above,  and  whatsoever  fate  is 
beneath  the  earth,  against  rtiy  will,  oh  queen,  I  left  thy  court.  But  the  man- 
dates of  the  gods  that  impel  me  now  to  go  through  these  shades,  through  places 
grisly  with  decay,  through  profound  night,  then  forced  me  to  their  will;  nor  could  ' 
I  think  I  brought  thee  grief  like  this  at  my  departure.  Stay  thy  steps  and  with- 
draw not  from  my  look.  Whom  dost  thou  flee  ?  The  last  word  fate  allows  me 
with  thee  is  even  this." 

Thus  did  Aeneas,  as  she  stood  with  fire-glaring  eyes,  seek  to  calm  her  spirit 
and  summoned  tears.  She  with  eyes  fixed  on  the  ground  bent  away,  unmoved 
in  aspect  at  the  words  essayed,  as  though  she  stood  a  hard  flint-rock  or  a  Mar- 
pesian  cliff.  At  length  she  flung  herself  away,  and  fled  defiant  into  the  shadow- 
bearing  grove,  where  her  consort  of  old  days,  Sychaeus,  answered  her  grief  with 
his  and  mated  her  love.  But  none -the  less  Aeneas,  overwhelmed  at  her  unjust 
fate,  followed  her  from  afar  with  tears  and  pitied  her  as  she  went.' 

Relations  have  been  exactly  reversed.  Aeneas,  now  that  the  divine 
will  has  been  fulfilled  and  Dido's  act  is  past  recall,  may  give  utterance 
to  what  he  feels  and  felt :  it  is  Dido's  turn  to  be  relentless. 

In  another  way,  further,  the  sixth  book,  apart  from  its  own  deep 
meaning,  is  related  directly  to  the  tragedy  of  the  fourth.  We  have 
found  tragedy  there  in  the  clash  of  human  wills,  righteous  in  the 
main,  with  an  over-ruling  fate.  Pathos  is  not  excluded  thereby. 
On  the  contrary,  the  more  human  the  actors,  the  more  poignantly 
does  their  disaster  move  pity  and  fear.  If  Aeneas  is  fate  itself  mas- 
querading as  epic  hero,  "the  passive  recipient,"  as  Sellar'  finds, 
"both  of  the  devotion  and  of  the  reproaches  of  Dido,"  if  Dido  is 
simply  delenda  Carthago,  Virgil  should  have  written  plain  history  m 
prose.  A  touch  of  the  allegorical,  and  in  Dido's  case,  direct  allusion 
to  the  Punic  wars,  are  evident,  but  the  main  interest  in  the  fourth 
book  is  in  human  beings  and  then*  battle  with  fate.  Now  this  fate, 
as  the  reader  feels  at  the  time,  is  a  power  essentially  for  the  good. 
It  is  not  a  malignant  arbiter,  as  in  the  novels  of  Thomas  Hardy:  it 
is  not  what  Hardy  misconceives  Aeschylean  fate  to  be.  Aeneas  is 
fulfilling  divine  destiny,  and  that  destiny  is  the  fatum  Romanum. 

But  the  nature  of  this  principle  needs  elaboration.  The  reader 
might  ponder  the  story  of  the  fourth  Aeneid  alone  and  find,  as  Sellar 
finds,3  merely  "the  doctrine  of  predestination  in  its  hardest  form." 
Roman  fate  conceived  in  the  abstract  has,  indeed,  even  less  personality 
than  Calvin's  deity— an  idol  of  wood  or  stone.    But  in  the  sixth  book 

»  vL  450  ff.  •  VirgU,  p.  398.  3  Ibid.  p.  344. 


54 


THE  CLASSICAL  JOURNAL 


the  vision  is  summoned  into  the  clear  light ;  all  history  sweeps  before 
the  hero;  a  sublime  apocalypse  connects  the  remote  past  with  the 
triumph  of  imperial  Rome.  Something  more  than  "seven  hills  by 
a  river"  is  cause  of  Dido's  suffering;  it  is  a  principle  of  justice  and 
civilization— the  Roman  temperament,  actively  and  beneficently  at 
work  in  human  history.  This  is  not,  I  believe,  a  conception  "much 
inferior  both  in  intellectual  subtlety  and  in  ethical  value  to  that  of  the 
Fate  of  Greek  tragedy  in  conflict  with  human  will."*  It  is  a  different 
conception  and  a  noble  one:  it  is  none  the  less  a  spring  for  true 
tragedy.  The  Fate  of  the  Greek  drama  had  in  a  way  no  moral 
development.  In  Aeschylus  it  is  the  accumulation  of  guilt  which 
involves  the  partly  innocent:  hence  the  battle,  and  pity  and  fear  for 
those  who  are  doomed  to  defeat.  But  the  triumph  of  Zeus  and 
Apollo  is  the  triumph  of  personal  theism  and  the  twilight  of  the  Fates; 
the  closing  scene  of  the  Eumenides  would  be  conceived  by  Dante  as 
commedia.  In  Sophocles,  most  clearly  in  his  Oedipus,  righteous 
humanity  is  brought  to  ruin  through  conflict  with  divine  law.  One 
cannot  repress  the  query,  hovering  on  the  poet's  lips,  it  would  seem, 
whether  this  law  can  be  just.  The  query  grows  more  urgent  still  for 
Euripides:  it  is  no  righteous  divinity  that  sends  Hippolytus  to  his 
doom.  A  new  motive  is  thus  introduced  into  the  dramatic  problem 
— human  revolt  at  these  helpless  conflicts.  If  too  much  is  made  of 
this  element,  indignation  drives  out  pity  and  fear,  and  thus  the  very 
principle  of  tragedy.  Now  in  Virgil  here  and  there  are  touches  of 
protest  against  the  iniquus  casus  in  which  several  of  the  actors  are 
involved:  many  of  these  occur  in  Book  ii,  where  the  indignation  of 
the  narrator  is  dramatically  appropriate.  These  are  the  sum  total 
of  Virgil's  inheritance  from  Euripides,  so  far  as  tragic  plot  is  con- 
cerned. He  is  akin  to  Euripides  in  his  pathos  and  his  far-reaching 
humanitarian  sympathies,  but  in  both  his  art  and  his  theology  he  is 
bound  by  far  closer  ties  to  Sophocles.*  What  indeed  is  the  "ideal 
truth  of  Sophocles — the  ideal  of  final  purification  and  reconcilement 
of  a  noble  human  nature  with  divine  nature"^  but  the  theology 
that  Anchises  teaches  his  son  in  the  fields  of  Elysium?    Nor  is 

«  Virgil,  p.  344. 

•  Mr.  Glover's  remarks  on  this  matter  are  only  partly  true  (pp.  49  ^0* 

i  Sellar,  p.  344. 


VIRGIL  AND  THE  DRAMA 


55 


personality  neglected  by  the  Roman  ideal.  It  is  not  true  that  the 
Fates  act  "irrespective  of  right  and  wrong,  regardless  of  personal 
happiness  or  suffering,"'  and  that  thus  the  Aeneid  ia,\\s  of  the  highest 
rank  as  a  work  of  art  because  it  "  does  not  touch  the  heart  or  enlighten 
the  conscience."  The  Fates  consider  right  and  wrong,  for  both 
Aeneas  and  Dido,  though  acting  naturally,  and,  to  sympathetic 
humanity,  pardonably,  have  crossed  the  moral  law:  retribution  fol- 
lows as  inexorably  as  it  would  in  Aeschylean  tragedy.  There  is 
plenty  of  moral  edification  in  the  story  of  Aeneas,  as  Dante  and  all 
the  Middle  Ages  were  only  too  well  aware.  What  Virgil  has  done 
is  to  mfuse  into  the  idea  of  Fate  an  ethical  content  that  it  did  not 
display  in  previous  drama.  He  identifies  it  with  all  that  is  best  and 
most  sacred  in  the  Roman  ideal  and  the  fulfilment  of  this  ideal  in 
past  and  present  history.  Its  clash  with  human  wills  is  as  tragic  as 
before,  but  the  reason  is  at  hand  in  human  error  and  sin,  however 
natural.  The  final  solution,  therefore,  brings  us  still  farther  away 
from  Euripides:  it  is  essentially,  though  forces  and  ideals  are  differ- 
ently named,  the  solution  of  Aeschylus— the  rational  vindication  of 
the  moral  law.  This  is  the  Fate,  then,  revealed  in  the  sixth  book 
of  Virgil's  poem,  which  is  therefore  an  indispensable  guide  to  the 
tragedy  of  the  fourth. 

IV 

It  would  be  strange  if  Virgil  had  given  dramatic  structure  to  the 
first  half  of  his  poem  and  devoted  the  remainder  to  epic  of  a  simple 
type;  it  would  be  difficult  to  achieve  harmony  with  such  a  scheme. 
Even  as  it  is,  according  to  Professor  Woodberry,"  "the  dramatic 
power  in  the  episode  of  Dido  threatens  to  overbear  the  moral  unity 
of  the  structure."  Possibly  the  reason  why  certain  critics — Pro- 
fessor Woodberry  is  not  among  them — find  the  latter  books  an  anti- 
climax is  that  they  are  imaware  of  the  essentially  dramatic  plot  and 
its  connection  with  that  of  the  first  half  of  the  poem.  Voltaire,  in 
Candide,  indulges  in  lavish  vituperation  of  all  but  the  second,  the 
fourth,  and  the  sixth  Aenetd,  and  Mr.  Saintsbury,  perhaps  subcon- 
sciously influenced  by  this  very  passage,  refers  in  his  History  of 
Criticism,^  to  the  seventh  book  as 

« Ihid,,  p.  354. 

a  In  an  appreciative  essay  on  Virgil  in  his  Great  Writers,  1907,  p.  135. 

3 1.  339- 


56 


THE  CLASSICAL  JOURNAL 


the  point  where  to  modern  readers  the  interest  in  the  Aeneid  is  all  but  over,  and 
the  romantic  wanderings  of  Aeneas,  the  passion  of  the  fourth  book,  the  majesty 
and  magnificence  of  the  sixth,  are  exchanged  for  the  kite-and-crow  battles  of 
Trojan  and  Rutulian,  the  doll-like  figure  of  Lavinia,  and  the  unjust  fate  of  the 
hero  Tumus  at  the  hands  of  a  divinely  helped  invader. 

Mr.  Saintsbury  is  a  facile  maker  of  phrases;  his  criticisms  are  always 
good  reading.  But  pertinence  is  also  a  virtue  of  the  critic,  and  hardly 
one  of  the  above  characterizations  is  to  the  point.  How  human  we 
are  after  all  1  Mr.  Saintsbury's  indignation  at  the  "  divinely  helped 
invader"  is  not  far  removed  from  that  of  the  rustic  at  the  villain  in 
the  play,  with  whom  Macaulay  also  is  at  one,  in  his  cry  of  "  Poltroon  1" 
when  Aeneas  sails  on  from  Carthage.  Righteous  wrath  at  injustice 
is  the  beginning  of  literary  appreciation  in  such  situations  as  these, 
but  the  rustics  should  first  be  sure  that  they  have  caught  the  right 
villain  and  even  then  not  descend  upon  the  poet  with  their  flails. 

Virgil  himself  did  not  feel  that  his  work  was  over  at  the  seventh 
book.     Toward  the  beginning  he  declares 

maius  opus  moveo. 

His  first  problem  in  the  ensuing  Iliad  of  war  is  to  create  an  antagonist 
worthy  of  Aeneas.  It  is  no  easy  task  to  match  the  splendid  strength 
and  reserve  of  the  hero's  character.  Yet  Virgil  is  so  successful  that 
the  sympathies  of  not  a  few  readers,  besides  Mr.  Saintsbury,  are 
enlisted  for  Tumus.  Like  Dido,  Tumus  has  a  vigorous  and  imme- 
diately engaging  personality.  He  is  young  and  goodly  to  see,  brave 
and  aristocratic — "potent  in  grandsires  and  greatgrandsires," '  and 
above  all,  patriotic  and  Italian.  By  careful  suggestion,  by  deliberate 
contrast  with  other  characters  like  that  of  the  plausible  but  weak- 
spirited  Drances,  Virgil  prepares  us  for  his  final  array  of  qualities  at 
the  end  of  the  poem.* 

In  one  breast,  reverence  and  madness,  mingled  with  grief,  fury-driven  love 
and  conscious  valor. 

No  reader  gainsays  when  Tumus  cries  out  that  he  descends 
to  the  shades  a  "sacred  soul."^  it  is  the  fate  of  Tumus  that 
makes  up  the  tragedy  of  the  latter  books:  the  drama  is  worked 
out   step   by   step.      The    seventh   book   presents   the   issue,   the 


z  vii,  vs.  56:  avis  aiavisque  potens. 
3  zii,  vs.  648. 


s  zii,  vss.  666  fif. 


VIRGIL  AND  THE  DRAMA 


SI 


combat  for  Lavinia,  to  which  Tumus  is  impelled  not  only 
by  the  Fury  but  by  his  own  resolve.  The  eighth  interposes 
dramatic  delay  in  the  embassy  of  Aeneas  to  Evander;  the  ninth 
records  the  hero's  aristeia,  his  deeds  of  valor  within  the  Trojan  camp. 
In  the  tenth,  the  slaying  of  the  lad  Pallas  marks  the  acme  of  the 
ascending  series,  for  Aeneas'  vow  of  revenge,  sworn  sacredly  to  Evan- 
der, means  Turnus'  death.  The  eleventh  book  fixes  once  for  all  the 
character  of  Tumus  as  the  splendid  champion  of  a  lost  cause.  At  a 
moment  of  utter  discouragement,  when  the  Latin  envoys  return 
from  their  fruitless  mission  to  Diomede,  when  the  king,  as  ever, 
wavers,  and  Drances  has  presented  cogent  arguments  for  peace, 
Turnus  breaks  through  all  opposition  and  carries  the  day  for  war. 
The  disasters  in  the  ensuing  fight,  especially  the  death  of  Camilla, 
prophesy  the  tragic  outcome,  and  the  agreement  of  the  armies  to  stake 
all  upon  a  single  combat  draws  the  toils  still  more  closely  about 
Turnus.  From  this  point  the  action  proceeds  rapidly  to  the  catas- 
trophe. 

One  quality  of  Tumus  repels  the  reader  from  the  start,  his  violentia^ 
vfipi^^  which,  in  keeping  with  the  tragic  conception,  calls  down 
divine  vengeance  {arri)  on  the  transgressor.  For  this,  Allecto  is  not 
wholly  responsible,  any  more  than  Venus  is  for  Dido's  passion,  for 
Tumus  has  a  crude  barbarian  strain  in  his  nature,  which  is  con- 
trasted at  various  points  with  the  courtesy  and  chivalry  of  Aeneas. 
But  from  the  moment  when  the  Furies  descend  upon  their  victim,' 
Turnus  has  our  sympathies.  There  is  no  further  mention  of  violen- 
tia;  his  actions  are  no  longer  under  his  own  control.  He  arms  him- 
self madly — like  Macbeth  in  a  similar  situation — ^though  the  night 
is  coming  on.  In  the  first  combat  his  very  manhood  ebbs  away: 
he  moves  as  in  a  dream,  raises  a  rock  and  can  scarcely  throw  it.  His 
qualities  desert  him,  even  his  bravery:  he  is  hardly  more  than  a  shade 
when  he  is  put  to  death.  His  death  is  inevitable;  it  is  a  stern  duty 
laid  upon  Aeneas  by  his  pledge  to  Evander.  At  the  last,  when  his 
chivalry  prompts  him  to  spare,  the  sight  of  the  belt  of  Pallas  on  his 
foe  calls  forth  the  final  stroke.  But  this  act  is  not  the  punishment 
of  a  villain;  it  is  the  victory  of  the  good  over  the  good,  as  in  the  slaying 
of  Hector,  a  deed  fated  but  lamentable.    The  soul  of  Tumus  "flies 

« xii,  vs.  loi.  • 


S8 


THE  CLASSICAL  JOURNAL 


t\ 


reproachful  to  the  shades."  It  utters  the  reproach  of  humanity 
laid  low  by  a  fate  that  it  does  not  altogether  deserve — so  Dido  had 
fled,  "defiant"  from  Aeneas  in  the  mournful  fields.'  The  fate  is, 
however,  inevitable  and  a  power  for  the  final  good.  It  is  the  same 
fate  which  controls  the  drama  of  the  fourth  book,  and  whose  nature 
is  revealed  in  the  sixth. 

But  apart  from  this  personal  tragedy  which  furnishes  the  external 
plot  of  the  later  books,  a  larger  drama  is  on,  the  play  of  ideal 
forces,  which  bear  the  ultimate  meaning  of  the  poem.  The  struggle 
is  not  merely  between  the  chieftains  of  heroic  quality,  it  is  between 
the  native  strength  of  Italy  and  all  the  influences  of  foreign  civiliza- 
tion that  developed  a  rude  and  primitive  nationality  into  imperial 
Rome.  This  element  adds  new  significance  to  the  drama  of  Tumus 
and  intensifies  the  tragedy  of  his  fate.  The  seventh  and  the  eighth 
books  present  the  actors  in  this  larger  drama.  The  first  of  them  has 
a  distinctly  Italian  coloring.  The  mustering  of  the  native  forces 
has  a  deeper  tone  of  patriotism  than  the  Homeric  catalogue  of  the 
ships,  the  epic  model  for  Virgil's  description.  The  book,  more  than  any 
other  of  the  Aeneid,  has  the  simple  pastoral  charm  of  the  Eclogues 
and  the  GeorgicSj  and  in  its  patriotic  sentiment  recalls  the  latter  poem. 
The  eighth  is  a  Roman  book.  The  embassy  of  Aeneas  to  Evander 
skilfully  transports  the  reader  to  a  new  scene,  where  the  rude  huts 
on  the  Palatine  suggest  by  contrast  the  splendor  of  imperial  Rome. 
The  legend  on  the  heaven-wrought  shield  has  the  same  purpose  as 
the  vision  of  heroes  in  the  Inferno  of  Book  vi,  presenting  the  sweep 
of  Roman  history  down  to  the  triumph  of  Augustus  himself.  Tumus 
with  the  Latins  and  Rutulians,  therefore,  represent  native  Italy, 
Aeneas  and  the  Trojans  the  influence  of  civilizing  forces  from  with- 
out. I  need  hardly  add  that  Virgil  does  not  set  forth  this  allegory 
baldly  or  mechanically;  his  heroes  are  persons,  not  types.  But  the 
larger  ideas  shimmer  through  the  narrative,  and  are  suggested  clearly 
enough,  in  Virgil's  way.  Both  of  these  ideal  forces  are  bone  and 
marrow  of  the  Rome  that  had  developed  in  the  poet's  time :  the  com- 
batants, engaged  in  inevitable  struggle  with  one  another,  are  fighting 
for  the  same  goal. 


VIRGIL  AND  THE  DRAMA 


59 


Di  quel  umile  Italia  fia  salute 
Per  cui  mori  la  vergine  Cammilla 
Eurialo  e  Turao  e  Niso  di  ferute — 

Dante  saw  that  the  latter  books  of  the  Aeneid  had  other  battles  than 
those  of  "crows  and  kites." 

In  Book  ix,  the  general  coloring  is  that  of  sorrow  and  defeat  for 
the  Trojan  side  during  the  absence  of  its  leader.  In  Book  x,  hope 
brightens  for  them  as  Aeneas  returns  and  renews  the  fight.  In  the 
eleventh  book,  the  sadness  of  the  nmth  is  deeply  reinforced:  it  is 
sorrow  and  defeat  for  the  Italians  now,  as  well.  The  last  book 
effects  the  reconciliation  of  the  warring  principals,  and  reveals 
Virgil's  final  estimate  of  the  Roman  temperament  and  Roman  achieve- 
ment.    It  supplements  the  famous  lines  of  Book  vi:' 

Others  shall  chisel  more  delicately  the  breathing  bronze,  so  I  believe,  and 
draw  features  from  marble;  plead  causes  better;  mark  with  the  rod  the  courses 
of  the  sky  and  name  the  rising  stars.  Remember  thou,  O  Roman,  to  subject 
the  nations  to  thy  sway— for  such  shall  be  thine  arts— and  to  add  law  to  peace, 
to  spare  the  humble  and  beat  down  the  proud. 

The  splendid  poetry  of  these  lines  is  proof  in  itself  that  the  Romans 
were  capable  of  other  artes  besides  that  of  war.  The  passage  empha- 
sizes what  is  most  appropriate  for  the  immediate  setting,  and  it  gives, 
I  believe,  only  part  of  Virgil's  meaning.  For  the  rest,  we  must  look 
to  the  later  books  of  the  poem. 

Sacra  deosque  dabo,  says  Aeneas,*  socer  arma  Latinus  habeto. 
Military  strength  is  a  national  characteristic,  but  it  is  to  be  enriched 
by  other  elements  introduced  from  without.  By  "religion"  I  under- 
stand not  merely  the  ancient  ceremonies  that  Augustus  was  so  anxious 
to  revive,  but  spiritual  enlightenment  in  general.  "They  are  to 
bring  to  Italy,"  says  Mr.  Glover,^  "  all  that  is  signified  to  a  Trojan 
by  Troy,  all  that  Evander  found  wanting  in  the  old  life  of  the  coun- 
try—wo5  et  cidtus:'  May  we  imagine  further  that  Virgil  is  thinking 
here  of  the  part  played  by  Greece  in  Rome's  development  ?  In  any 
case  his  meaning  here  is  larger  than  that  of  the  prophecy  of  Anchises. 
More  important  still  is  the  ultimate  effect  that  foreign  influence  is  to 
have  on  national  character;  it  is  not  to  lead  to  servile  imitation,  the 
abandonment  of  native  traits. — ^Juno  insists  upon  that. 


'  VI,  VI.  472. 


«  Vss.  847  flf. 


a  xii,  vs.  192. 


3  p.  115. 


6p  THE  CLASSICAL  JOURNAL 

Sit  Romana  potens  Itala  virtute  propago; 
Occidit  occideritque  sinas  cum  nomine  Troia.^ 

Jupiter  smiles  assent: 

commixti  cor  pore  tantum 
subsident  Teucri. 

Virgil  differs  from  Horace,  it  would  seem,  in  his  reading  of  the 
intellectual  history  of  Rome:  not  Graecia  but  Italia  capta  takes  its 
capturer  captive. 

These  words  of  Jupiter  announce  the  dinouement  of  the  larger 
plot  of  the  later  books— that  is,  the  main  idea  of  VirgiPs  epic.  Here, 
surely,  the  gods  are  not  mere  epic  adornment:  the  divine  actors 
convey  a  message  that  could  hardly  be  given  by  anybody  else.  By 
disposing  first  of  the  ideal  problem,  Virgil  can  keep  the  personal 
tragedy,  the  fate  of  Turnus,  for  the  end  of  the  poem — certainly  a 
triumph  in  dramatic  arrangement.  Here  is  one  important  detail  in 
which  Virgil  diverges  from  his  epic  model,  the  Iliad  of  Homer:  for 
even  if  those  are  right  who  regard  the  last  two  books  of  the  Iliad  as 
later  additions,  the  poet  of  the  twenty-second  book  does  not  end 
with  the  moment  of  Hector's  death. 

An  analysis  of  the  Aeneid  in  the  light  of  the  foregoing  discussion 
reveals  an  epic  poem  presenting  a  unified  narrative  and  yet  con- 
structed of  two  tragedies,  the  tragedy  of  Dido  and  the  tragedy  of 
Turnus.  These  tragedies  are  linked  together  by  the  sixth  book, 
which  is  indispensable  for  the  plot  of  either,  as  it  sets  forth  the  nature 
of  the  fate  that  controls  both.  The  larger  ideas  in  which  personal 
action  is  set  are  disclosed  with  completeness  only  in  the  later  books 
— maius  opus  moveo.  And  though  the  tragedies  are  both  sincere, 
though  human  pathos  and  woe  are  an  undercurrent  in  VirgiPs  feeling, 
I  cannot  find  with  Professor  Woodberry,^  that  the  Aeneid  is  a  "iwwerere, 
following  the  gloria  of  his  fourth  eclogue  as  manhood  follows  youth," 
or  that  the  structure  of  the  poem  presents  a  series  of  defeats — ^that  of 
Troy,  that  of  Dido,  that  of  Turnus,  and  almost  that  of  Aeneas  him- 
self. The  poem  throbs  with  the  tender  sympathy  and  infinite  pity 
of  one  who  has  sounded  sorrow  to  its  depths,  but  it  ends  with  a 
twofold  triumph,  the  triumph  of  Italy  and  the  triumph  of  Rome. 
Per  varios  casus^  per  tot  discrimina  rerum  tendimus  in  Latium, 

X  xii,  vs.  827.  a  p.  133. 


VIRGIL  AND  THE  DRAMA 


61 


This  is  not  a  shallower,  it  is  a  deeper  reading  of  life  than  that  of  him 
who  has  merely  *' tears  for  things." 

A  bare  summary  of  the  events  in  the  narrative  •of  the  Aeneid — a 
storm  at  sea,  funeral  games,  a  hero's  story  of  his  adventures,  a  hero's 
descent  to  the  lower  world — suggest  the  influence  of  Homer  at  every 
turn.  Despite  these  details,  despite  the  echoing  of  beautiful  phrases 
and  imagery — which  is  not  "  imitation,"  but  a  part  of  the  ancient 
poet's  sacred  function — the  discerning  reader  is  astonished  to  find 
that  there  is  nothing  Homeric  in  the  total  effect  of  the  poem  or  its 
total  plan.  One  great  difference  is  the  strong  national  sentiment  of 
the  Aeneid y  whereas  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  both  are  essentially  per- 
sonal narratives.  Another  difference,  more  striking  still,  is  the 
element  I  have  discussed  in  this  paper.  For  the  poem  is  not  solely 
epic:  in  structure  it  is  a  fusion  of  epic  and  of  Attic  tragedy,  which 
later  Virgil  enriches  by  creating  a  new  conception  of  fate.  The 
poem  is  indeed  alta  tragedia,  as  was  said  by  one  who  "knew  it  all  in 
all."  Whatever  the  plays  of  Varius  and  Ovid  may  have  been, 
Virgil's  Aeneid  alone  is  proof  that  the  Augustan  Age  still  cherished 
the  drama. 


I 


